Snape
by closedbookopenmind
Summary: Snape has always had his secrets, and has always been sure to keep them under lock and key. But with a look into the Pensive, Harry stumbles onto something he can't even begin to understand, Snape's deepest secret. What could Snape's memory really mean?


Author's Note: My story takes place in the 5th book during Harry's occlumency lessons with Snape. Please keep that in mind or you will not understand the story. Also, before you read my story, I would like to let you know that I am a Christian. I enjoy J.K. Rowling's books because of their characterization, not because of their magical content. However, if you disagree with me, and would think you are liable to get into witchcraft after reading my story, please just don't read it. Thank you.

Disclaimer:I don't own Harry Potter; J.K. Rowling does.

Professor Snape traipsed down the long corridors of Hogwarts Castle, with a flopping soggy step each time his left shoe hit the stone floor. An aggravated grimace covered his pallid face. He was trying his best to ignore the stares and sniggers coming from the hallway's portraits, to little avail. The occupants of the paintings whizzed back and forth between their frames, rushing to tell their friends of Snape's arrival, and the condition he was in. His robes dripped and dragged across the floor with toilet water, and he held out his drenched arms as to keep them away from the rest of his body. If the sight of a doused, flopping and wobbling Snape wasn't enough to make the paintings laugh, the disgusted look on his curling lips and beady eyes was.

Snape was furious. He had almost had Potter, was completely ready to embarrass him, when the chance had been taken away. Montague, captain of the Slytherin quiditch team and one of his favorite students, had been found stuck in one of the second floor toilets. The unfortunate occurrence, due to the rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin Houses, had cost him an occlumency lesson with Harry Potter.

Draco had dashed into the room to ask him for help, just as the professor was just about to read Harry's thoughts. There were few things in life that brought Snape as much pleasure as humiliating his least favorite student, and occlumency was the perfect chance. The look on Harry's face after one of their previous lessons had been as good as gold. It made what Snape had first considered his most odious after class work, worth while. A crimson red blush had traveled up Harry's cheeks and then to the points of his ears, before coming back down and resting on his cringed and sour looking mouth; Snape had forced his way into the memory of Harry kissing, what he had assumed was his girlfriend. He could've only hoped to have as good of luck this time.

But with Draco's interruption, Snape had lost his chance. He sent Harry back to Gryffindor tower and spent the next 15 minutes extracting a dazed and dripping Montague from an overflowing toilet. In the meantime he had managed to slip into a huge pool of water surrounding Montague's "seat," had been laughed at by at least a third of the castle's portraits and been given some very discouraging looks from passer-by students. By the time he had reached his office, he was aggravated, tired and ready for the day's end.

Snape took one last glance down the dimly lit hallway, and the shadowy forms of the laughing portraits and sighed before reaching out a slippery hand in an attempt to turn the door knob, with little success. His hands were too wet to grip the handle properly. He muffled a steady stream of curse words under his breath before pulling out his wand from his soggy robes. The professor flicked water gently from the tip of his wand, pointed it at the door and said the necessary incantation in a barely audible moan. The door swung open. Snape lazed his way in, dripping, hunched over and eyes half closed. Finding and performing the spells needed to get Montague out of the toilet had been a chore enough in itself, and the reception he got on his way back to his office had only added to his aggravation.

A plush and worn out arm chair was waiting for Snape by the fireplace. With another point of his wand the hearth glowed with fiery coals and the logs crackled and sparked with a newly lit flame. Sluggishly moving towards the comfort of the fire and that of his chair, Snape scanned the room in search of a place to throw his wet cloak; when his eyes reached something he hadn't expected to see.

His papers were all in order in neat stacks on his desk. His potions' cupboard was closed and locked. Jars of green liquid and preserved squid-looking creatures floated in their places by the window sill. Everything, upon first inspection seemed to be in order. But when Snape's eyes traveled to the room's opposite corner, he found a pair of slumped shoulders sticking out from a large stone basin. Two shaky arms supported themselves on the basin's table, and as Snape walked forward he could begin to see scraggily dark hair waving in the pools of his memories.

All of Snape's hatred for Potter grew and along with his embarrassment, culminated into something nearly unbearable. For all of the terrible things he had done in his lifetime, all of the people he had killed, all of the gasping breaths and last screams that escaped from victims, at the hands of Voldemort and himself, there were two memories that Snape looked back on with the most pain. And Harry Potter was looking into one of them right now.

I will decide whether or not to continue my story and post new chapters based on reviews. And if you like my story thus far, I have another finished one for you to check out, A Mother's Eyes. Thank you. Please read and review!


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